The saga of the The Frag Dolls, a team of attractive women who excel at first-person shooter games, has all the ingredients of a good controversy - and a good marketing campaign. The Frag Dolls’ story features an irresistible collision of hot-button topics and game-blogging trends, touching on stealth blogs, competitive gaming, “astroturfing,” and the ongoing effort by women gamers to be recognized for skills rather than sex.

The team of gamer-bloggers is sponsored by Ubisoft, which wasn’t noted when the Frag Dolls first got attention through an Oct. 30 post on the popular Boing Boing Blog.

The group was assembled via a classified ad on CraigsList (preserved online at Geek.com) seeking “female gamers for online promotions and marketing” to work 10 to 40 hours a week from home as independent contractors. Job duties include appearing at game industry events to demonstrate their FPS skills and blog on the Frag Dolls web site (which began life on Blogspot).

The Boing Boing link highlighted the site as a “group woman-gamer blog.” But readers picked up on Ubisoft’s involvement and the discussion quickly turned to “booth babes” and stealth marketing.

Simon Carless of the FFWD blog described the Frag Dolls as “a clan formed specifically by Ubisoft (Monkees-style) in order to promote their online FPS games. ” Carless took issue with the presentation, which he called “dishonest marketing.”

“I’m not upset by the concept of Fragdolls as an Ubisoft-created FPS clan, and in fact, I think there should be no problem with them competing in tournaments, and formally promoting Ubisoft at any opportunity. I’m just a little miffed that the website does a poor job of explaining their agenda, and a number of the seemingly personal weblog entries promote Ubisoft products (even Ubi products unrelated to FPS gaming) without making their direct financial ties to Ubisoft particularly clear.

Shedding additional light on the group was Danielle “Sachant” Vanderlip, who had responded to Ubisoft’s ad and wrote about it in a lengthy editorial on GameRifts.

The short of it is, the FragDolls are in fact talented and attractive ladies brought together for the purpose of promoting UbiSoft products and getting people excited about them. … Unfortunately, the way it’s being done is under the table, as if there is some sort of stigma of shame attached to it.

What’s Ubisoft’s take on the Frag Dolls? You get a hint from Michael Beadle of the company’s PR staff, who offered a brief comment in an Xbox.com article about the clan, which highlighted the reaction of male gamers during the Frag Dolls’ appearance at the Penny Arcade show.

“When they first saw them, they were kind of ogling them, but when the Frag Dolls started playing, the guys thought, ‘These girls are okay.’ Then, when the guys got the living crap beat out of them, they started worshipping the Frag Dolls.”

For the last word, Frag Doll Valkyrie presented the group’s perspective and responded to critics in a post at the GameRifts forum. An excerpt:

“What this really comes down to is a new venture that will open the doors of opportunity for males and females alike in providing sports like sponsorship to gamers … This is also for the other female gamers out there as well. You are upset by what we are representing. In turn I am upset by what you are IMPLYING. We didnt sell our souls; we took an opportunity to do what we love and there is nothing wrong with it.”